A NEW face on the inscrutable Mother of all BS threads!! Welcome, Ed T. Hang around and show yer stuff, or just have a little something. Unless you already have one.

Funny you should say that. I don't think the terrible problem of unwed fathers nationwide has ever been identified. If they were all rounded up and put to live in one big farm, maybe they could learn something!

It warms my heart to see Amos getting a firm grasp on unreality at last.

"There's hope for that boy yet," says Chongo, pouring himself a stiff shot of whisky and checking the bore on the twin barrels of the coach gun.

"He may have a future role in one of my tales," chirps Corridus.

"'E's off to a flyemin' good start, 'e is!" says Olive Whatnoll.

"More puerile nonsense, I suppose?" remarks Penelope Rutledge, touching up her lip gloss and eyeliner. "How droll, the lives of these Californians. No wonder they make such silly feature films over there in Hollywood."

It is clear that even in Unrealsville Ms Rutledge is woefully uninformed--for example she doesn't know the difference between virility and puerility, nor man from boy. Nut she has evidently organized her life safely enough that these vital distinctions cannot have any impact on her.

As a rule of thumb, the quest for human symmetry is sought, but never satisfied. The closer we look, the more we see asymmetry.

I began a quest, early in life, focusing the breast. I set out to find perfect breasts, two that I believed would reflect perfect symmetry.

After much study, (I stop just short at calling it research), I concluded that one breast is "not like the other". At first I was puzzled, then dismayed. "Was this only true for young developing girls", I asked. As my discovery progressed, I found that breasts even up with age, never reaching a state of symmetry.

I now enjoy breasts of all sizes, big, little, or none at all (symmetry be gone with you, I say). My focus is now nipples. Like a fine sculpture, the breast is the pedestal upon which the masterpiece, the nipple, is exhibited. When one visits a museum, it's not to look at the pedestal, but, at the masterpiece sitting on it. The nipple is that magnificent masterpiece.

My journey brings me back to a child hood song, Horace the Horse (on the Merry Go Round) who was so sad that he was the last horse. Oone day he realized that "the others are a-following me" (Thank you Burl Ives).

I think he got confused and intimidated by the Great Unreality Campaign. Being as how his main representative in these parts is Little Hawk, he wasn't sure whether he was a fact or a figment. Kinda got him down, I think.

Stilly River Sage I remain wakeful of your advice, I surmise made in kindness. But, as the northern rocking chair rocker, Neil Young said "It's better to burn out than rust out".

I am left dark and perplexed from the suggestion, likely made in jest, that misfortune has come upon the much-adored and temperate beacon William Shatner. Maple-land legends reveal that upon his birth, the sky lit up above a frosty white volcano, kindling the horizon with orange and red. Could this be the source of tales of his early fiery demise? Maybe so? But, I suspect it is merely early dawn for the "trekster icon" , with his light shining strong.

Well, Ed, if you yourself are not one of Little Hawk's figment, then you are in for a very warm reception when he drops on. Shatner, you see, was sort of reconstructed as just the sort of Glamourous Divine you describe, mostly by the obsessed Little Hawk who cannot stop praising Shatner, accurately or not. As a result he has achieved an almost semi-fictitious stature around here. And, in turn, some of us have put Little Hawk on the defensive for this blind spot; so he will embrace you like a brother if you are not already one and the same person. He peoples these parts with so many fictitious characyrs tht one must be judicious.

The reason I seldom come here is obvious. I'm a very busy man. I have things to do, people to see, I have important work on my hands. I have a family. I have priorities. I have a LIFE. Can you guess how low on my list of priorities it is to visit this discussion site...let alone this particular thread? Hmmm? Can you?

Only someone who had practically no life at all would spend much time here, seems to me. It's easy to determine who that would be. Just scan the list of posts here and count who has posted the most often in, say, the last 60 days. Do up totals on each poster, and you will see immediately who among you is virtually devoid of what could be termed "a life"....in normal terms, I mean.

Not that I'm implying that such people's lives have no validity or value. Hardly!

One doesn't bother to imply something when it's become as blatantly obvious as the rainbow-striped ass on a mandrill. One just comes right out and says it! ;-)

Read my book "Get A Life!" and see if you can pick up a few useful pointers which will help you escape from THE Great Unreality you have fallen into if you are one of those unfortunates who typically posts more than twice a day on this forum.

I think one can do both, but that Gaston Bachelard was probably making a point about people who have wonderful verbal skills, and who enjoy playing with those skills for their own mental amusement, but who fail to achieve much in the real world because they are too busy just talking about it rather than doing it.

Philosopher and scientist Gaston Bachelard (1884-1962), exposed errors in scientific thinking. He contended that progress in science could be influenced or blocked by obstacles, since "scientific knowledge" had no place for " ordinary knowledge" gained through experience. He also challenged scientist to take the opposite position (used in philosophy) to challenge and verify scientific thought, that was (is) not very well built into science processes. His work als dealt with many other topics, including poetry, dreams, psychoanalysis, the imagination and architecture.

Considering his published work, I suspect Little Hawk is correct in his analysis.

Thomas Edison, one of the most prolific inventors in history, holding 1,093 U.S. patents, was a telegraph operator (IMO, could only loosely be called a scientist). Most of his inventions came from his experience, not from his study of science or the theory of his inventions. . I am not underplaying the value of science in our lives, but see the importance of of getting out to experienc life....like Gaston Bachelard seemed to say.

Going by my own experiences, I'd say that a couple of minutes of genuine experience easily outweighs all the scientific opinions (and pontification) in the world. It registers, however, only on the one who has had the experience.

The whole point of scientific rigor is to get clear about what part of experience is reliable, rather than attributable to errors in viewpoint. Experience is well and good but only if you can refrain from adding a bunch of other stuff into it.

Not that I'm implying that such people's lives have no validity or value. Hardly!

I wonder if John Hardly will get wind of this?

I've spent a fair amount of time with Derrida and Foucault, and they spent some quality time with your fellow Bachelard, so what goes around comes around, as they say. MOM prefers to use that stack of books as a doorstop.

"Reports that say that something hasn't happened are always interesting to me, because as we know, there are known knowns; there are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns; that is to say we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns -- the ones we don't know we don't know."

I suspect William Shatner, Shane and even John Hardly may support the statement that there are reports that something hasn't happened?

Hi, Mom! I'm back home after my brother and I trekked all over Colter's Hell, Jackson's Hole, and places like that. We were good though and didn't consort with any unsavory people of whom you might disapprove.

Rapaire By mon (in my last post) I meant Scots, Buddhists from eastern Myanmar or adjacent parts of Thailand, or pidgin English speakers. I did not refer to your Mom, except if she belongs to one of these groups. (He said, never admitting to a typo).

I meant what I said. I told her because I'm Mom's favorite and she's leaving everything to me when I die. We did, however, meet a Scottish Jamaican who was a Buddhist priest from Eastern Burma who, like all Scots, spoke only pidgin English.

Y'all will just have to wonder what jewels of wisdom wandered off - cause it ain't worth repeatin'.

I do wonder, though, just what Rap intends to do with all of MOM's "everything" that she is going to leave him when he dies. You're a brave man, Rapaire. I don't know that I would want to be hauling all of MOM's baggage into the grave with me.

For her to go ahead and unload everything onto you at your death, she must think you are the Pharaoh or something.

You sure have pulled the wool over her eyes.

Except she wants to talk to you about that little matter of the forest fire at Yellowstone. YOu burned up her still in the process.

The fires in Yellowstone and the Tetons and the Gros Ventres are o-u-t out, or very nearly so. Rained and snowed all day yesterday, and I woke up to snow on the lawn today. Just a wet dusting, but a Sign Of Things To Come. I suspect that it indicates the End Of The World As We Know It: soon women will be wearing pants and men will be speeding along at speeds in excess of 25 miles per hour (any faster and the breath would be sucked from your lungs and you'd die). Nostropompous, an Alsatian prophet, predicted all of this in 1217, just before he was collected by the local Stray Dog Collector and eaten by the citizens of Merdehaus-Sur-La-Seine at their annual Feast Of Our Lady Of The Divine Figure.